Speaker 1: This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty. Hi, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty. So.
Speaker 1: I have somebody really interesting on the podcast today. He's
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, but he's also sort of, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, in most people's opinion, a sports legend. At
Speaker 1: this point, let's need the general manager of my favorite team,
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Rams.
Speaker 2: Hi, how's it going. I don't know if I'm a legend,
Speaker 2: though I think that's your friend. Okay, there's legends.
Speaker 1: I don't know you're my friend, but you're I think
Speaker 1: everything that you've done with the Rams, particularly this last season,
Speaker 1: I personally think it puts you into legend category.
Speaker 2: Is this season better than the Super Bowl? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's the thing, right, super Bowl two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty two. But so explain to people, because not
Speaker 1: everybody understands that how a draft works, and where where
Speaker 1: you are in a draft lineup, how teams get to
Speaker 1: pick first, second, third, fourth, fifth, all of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Can you explain that?
Speaker 2: So the NFL is engineered right to try to have
Speaker 2: everyone have a fair chance. So if the better you
Speaker 2: are as a team, the later you pick in each
Speaker 2: round there's seven rounds, so there's thirty two teams. If
Speaker 2: you're the best team, if you're the Chiefs this year,
Speaker 2: you pick thirty two. Then the next round you pick
Speaker 2: sixty four. The next round sixty four plus thirty two
Speaker 2: is about ninety six. The worst team picks first, and
Speaker 2: then somewhere in between. There for the record, Now, what
Speaker 2: we had done in the past to probably compete for
Speaker 2: that Super Bowl is trade away a lot of our
Speaker 2: first round picks. So we've spent probably seven years not
Speaker 2: having a first round pick, but living in the second, third, four, fifth, sixth,
Speaker 2: seventh round.
Speaker 1: And what round were you for the twenty twenty three season.
Speaker 2: We were in the second.
Speaker 1: Round, and we did the draft house, and like, I
Speaker 1: didn't even understand the concept of a draft house and
Speaker 1: how extensive it is. There's computers everywhere. You've got some
Speaker 1: people in this room, some people in that room. You know,
Speaker 1: you're floating around, you're checking in on everything, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of blown away by the entire process. And
Speaker 1: then watching how you picked people was incredibly interesting to me,
Speaker 1: and being able to actually get them. You have a board,
Speaker 1: get a board, you have a board, you have a
Speaker 1: whole system.
Speaker 2: For your listeners. If you've ever played a sport in
Speaker 2: the backyard in your hometown, did you ever play kickball
Speaker 2: or something, or you're at school and you go, you
Speaker 2: know what, I.
Speaker 1: Was an athlete growing up there, I as you was one.
Speaker 2: It's very similar to being in your hometown and you're
Speaker 2: going to play a pickup game of basketball and you go,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm picking Shannon first, and then somebody else.
Speaker 2: Pretty nice, they pretty much know that they're going to
Speaker 2: pick someone else second, and then you know, you flip
Speaker 2: a coin and who gets the first pick. But it's
Speaker 2: very similar. You have your board of how you rate
Speaker 2: football players, and at that point, when the chaos begins
Speaker 2: other people get to pick, you use that board to
Speaker 2: help make your help. Remember all the preparation that went
Speaker 2: into that draft day. So you think about draft is
Speaker 2: in late April. It's over three days Thursday night, Friday night,
Speaker 2: Saturday probably afternoon, so there's probably three sixty five minus
Speaker 2: those threes. There's three hundred and sixty two days of
Speaker 2: preparation for those three days. But the board represents in
Speaker 2: a concise manner all the work that went into each
Speaker 2: of those individuals, and as you know, humans are very
Speaker 2: complex people. Some of them are very skilled at football,
Speaker 2: but because of that complexity, you really really want to
Speaker 2: know the person as well before you make that pick,
Speaker 2: before you draft them, before you bring them on to
Speaker 2: help the Rams for at least four years and hopefully beyond.
Speaker 1: I remember you telling me that at the draft house,
Speaker 1: and you were really explaining that, you know, you could
Speaker 1: have somebody who's performing exceptionally well, but how important it
Speaker 1: is to know the person, what their longevity is, what
Speaker 1: their mindset is. Are they somebody who's going to crumble
Speaker 1: under pressure eventually or not? And it gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of pause because I don't know if a lot
Speaker 1: of other teams view it that way. Where and you
Speaker 1: know your category is if I'm allowed to talk about
Speaker 1: some of.
Speaker 2: Your categories, I can tell you this for the last
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five days, what you came into
Speaker 2: the if you call it our draft house, our draft room,
Speaker 2: and noticed we've discussed that for three hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: five days, probably not everyone, but the people that heard it, go, oh,
Speaker 2: would Shannon like to date this person? So you can
Speaker 2: go from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, well we're going to get into that in one second,
Speaker 1: because yeah, we'll get.
Speaker 2: Into the category. Yes, it's a tease for the audience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're getting there, We're getting there, We're getting there.
Speaker 1: So I would say you picked some diamonds in the rough,
Speaker 1: or maybe to the outside world you picked some diamonds
Speaker 1: in the rough, but because of this board, perhaps they
Speaker 1: weren't diamonds in the rough to you. Like Puka for instance,
Speaker 1: was he a diamond in the rough?
Speaker 2: Considering where he was drafted? Fifth round? So against seven
Speaker 2: seven rounds, he's five, there's only two left in the draft,
Speaker 2: and for him to go and basically break all the
Speaker 2: rookie receiving records based on the results he had it
Speaker 2: during his rookie year, he would be considered a diming
Speaker 2: in the rough, not necessarily for the Rams. And I
Speaker 2: can't even say this. Every team in the NFL knew
Speaker 2: about Puka and they probably had him somewhere on their
Speaker 2: draft board. Now, at the end of the day, we
Speaker 2: can get into why it was a really really successful
Speaker 2: first year of marriage for us with Puka. But I'm
Speaker 2: not going to say no one knew about him, but
Speaker 2: all thirty two teams, including us, chose not to pick
Speaker 2: him in the first four rounds. We chose to do
Speaker 2: it in the fifth. Now I'll give you this nugget.
Speaker 2: We can go from there. He went to the Combine.
Speaker 2: So the Combines in Indianapolis, and that's where these college
Speaker 2: kids go once a year and they do non football drills.
Speaker 2: So there's no pads, there's no helmets, there's no route
Speaker 2: to run, no defender trying to cover him. So, if
Speaker 2: you know, Pokah is a very big, strong human being
Speaker 2: at receiver, so he is better since we're in La Lakers.
Speaker 2: He's one of those guys that the way he gets
Speaker 2: open is almost like a basketball player, like a Laker,
Speaker 2: like Shaquille O'Neill bodying up someone and getting a rebound.
Speaker 2: So point being is, he goes to Indianapolis and they
Speaker 2: just think about this. They're going to run basically a
Speaker 2: race where you're gonna get a blue ribbon red, you know,
Speaker 2: blue red or yell. He's not the fastest in a
Speaker 2: race for forty yards. So because of that knowledge and
Speaker 2: over the years of knowing that the slower receiver is
Speaker 2: usually the later, he goes in the draft. But because
Speaker 2: of that, we knew we probably could pick some other
Speaker 2: players before him. But we definitely wanted to pick Puoka
Speaker 2: at some point now based on the way he played,
Speaker 2: should have picked him earlier, should at least picked him
Speaker 2: in the fourth round.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, he did insane things, but you also
Speaker 1: picked you know other what I would perceive for diamonds
Speaker 1: in the rough lake, I don't know. When I saw
Speaker 1: the team put together, I just like, wow, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cool thing about that rookie group. Kobe Turner drafted
Speaker 2: in the third round, Pookah in the fifth. They both
Speaker 2: finished let's call it second for an individual award to
Speaker 2: two players who were picked in the first round, So
Speaker 2: they both finished offensive rookie. They're Pukah second to c. J.
Speaker 2: Stroud who was Houston's QB, and Kobe to Will Anderson,
Speaker 2: who was also Houston's you know, outside linebacker. Point being,
Speaker 2: both of those players were probably picked in the top
Speaker 2: ten players of the draft, so usually those guys are
Speaker 2: expected to probably win those type of awards. But so
Speaker 2: it is neat that those two players, being you know
Speaker 2: where they were picked, if you want to call it,
Speaker 2: diamonds in the rough came in and said, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: look at me. Remember me, I can play football too.
Speaker 1: So it's meat and they did. I think the entire
Speaker 1: group of rookies that you had did an exceptional job
Speaker 1: in this season for the most part. Obviously, Puka stood
Speaker 1: out because our mutual friend Christy oh yeah, like just
Speaker 1: loves him, loves him, loves him, loves him. So it
Speaker 1: was adopted, adopted him, like started making him food. Well,
Speaker 1: what are the Hawaiian dish?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the Hawaiian basically sushi made of spam. I
Speaker 2: mean the moment she made Puka.
Speaker 1: That, yes, Christy and Pooka bonded over their spam sushi
Speaker 1: thing that she made him all the time.
Speaker 2: We can get into Christie, but that's Christy being Christy,
Speaker 2: but Puka really appreciate. I can say this and we
Speaker 2: can get to it. It's the neat thing. Football is
Speaker 2: very similar to life, let's call it. We've got a
Speaker 2: lot of veteran players a little bit older in life
Speaker 2: and end of the day, right when you play into
Speaker 2: year seven, eight, nine, ten, you've pretty much made it,
Speaker 2: gotten a second contract, maybe even a third. Different levels
Speaker 2: of let's call it football money and wealth, but set
Speaker 2: for a lot of families. But the neat thing is
Speaker 2: just like life. Those players, they're veterans. They got a
Speaker 2: lot of noise in life, right, based on going through
Speaker 2: stuff that happens in life. You know, relationships that come
Speaker 2: and go, and let's call it parents that may come
Speaker 2: and go. So they're just going through stuff, even though
Speaker 2: you look at them on Sundays and go, oh, they're
Speaker 2: football players are having fun. But these rookies, it's like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, they had made it, they had reached
Speaker 2: their dream, you know. So it's probably similar to your
Speaker 2: business where you could be a first time actress. You've
Speaker 2: kind of made it and it's the first time your
Speaker 2: own set with this.
Speaker 1: It's exciting twenty years yeah.
Speaker 2: Actor actress. But maybe they're You're like, wow, why are
Speaker 2: they not as excited about the.
Speaker 1: Way they're calm? They don't have a lot of nerves.
Speaker 1: They're used to it. And I'm like the hungry young
Speaker 1: buck that's like so stoked that I'm even there that
Speaker 1: maybe I try so much harder versus now. So I
Speaker 1: get what you're saying. Like the veterans, they're used to it.
Speaker 1: It's routine. It doesn't mean that they don't have passion
Speaker 1: for it still, but you know, they've seen a lot
Speaker 1: and by the way, the older you get, the more
Speaker 1: prone to injuries you are. I would imagine for me
Speaker 1: there would be a little bit of fear there that
Speaker 1: I know that the veterans must have to sort of
Speaker 1: psyche themselves out of of like, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get injured. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get sacked too hard. I don't want this. I don't
Speaker 1: want that because then if it's a serious injury, it
Speaker 1: puts them out of their career. They're done. Whereas the rookies,
Speaker 1: are they even thinking about stuff like that?
Speaker 2: Are they They're like, there was this energy that was
Speaker 2: very contagious and ignited, ignited us to have a let's
Speaker 2: call overchief from a season standpoint, Yeah, and it was
Speaker 2: pretty cool to take what they did on the field.
Speaker 2: That's important. They kind of what they brought, you know,
Speaker 2: in what we call the locker room right where you know,
Speaker 2: there's fifty three men from a lot of different places,
Speaker 2: a lot of different sociological backgrounds, ages, the whole deal,
Speaker 2: from all over the all over the United States. I
Speaker 2: think Jason Kelsey and we won't he just had a
Speaker 2: great retirement speech, but he said the NFL is like
Speaker 2: a place where a guy who went to Stanford can
Speaker 2: basically line up beside a guy who basically went to
Speaker 2: Kilgore Junior College in Texas and partner with each other
Speaker 2: for however many years the equals and work together. It's
Speaker 2: it's a cool thing. But that's what I remember about
Speaker 2: this rookie class.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. I mean, you have experienced because you
Speaker 1: were a football player.
Speaker 2: Yes, not a legend, but that's the I don't know,
Speaker 2: weren't you really The answer was probably maybe in high school.
Speaker 2: Then you get to the next level of the video
Speaker 2: game and you realize you're not as good. A lot
Speaker 2: of times, people in my job or coaching, we weren't
Speaker 2: really good enough to play in the NFL, but we
Speaker 2: still had a passion for football, and here we are
Speaker 2: doing this. So usually the better players play than some
Speaker 2: of us who play. We kind of get weeded out
Speaker 2: and it's time for you to hang up the cleats
Speaker 2: and helmet.
Speaker 1: And so then you became a scout, right right, So
Speaker 1: how did you go from being a scout? And I
Speaker 1: think you were a scout with two different teams, The Jaguars.
Speaker 2: J WARS was first dam Jacksonville j Wars.
Speaker 1: And who was the second Atlanta Falcons Atlanta Falcons. So
Speaker 1: how did you go from being a scout to a
Speaker 1: general manager?
Speaker 2: You know that two things. Probably a lot of luck.
Speaker 2: And I mean that obviously there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: in the NFL who probably have the potential to be
Speaker 2: a general manager. And then when I get into luck,
Speaker 2: is you're fortunate enough to be around a collective that
Speaker 2: at that moment is succeeding. I often say around lucky
Speaker 2: enough to be a part of a team that has
Speaker 2: a really good quarterback. So in Atlanta we had Matt Ryan.
Speaker 2: Now I was a part of selecting Matt Ryan, things
Speaker 2: like that, but at the end of the day, because
Speaker 2: of his success, because of our success in Atlanta, what
Speaker 2: ends up happening is is other NFL teams who aren't
Speaker 2: as successful in that moment in time, they try they
Speaker 2: want to replicate success. They're not having as much success,
Speaker 2: so they start looking at teams that have had success,
Speaker 2: and is there anyone in that organization right that can
Speaker 2: come to our organization maybe ignite it. So, I humbly say,
Speaker 2: in so many years in it, you realize how lucky
Speaker 2: you are, even though, like the old age is when
Speaker 2: you get that break or you get that lucky opportunity,
Speaker 2: it's best to have prepared so that you have a
Speaker 2: chance to maybe interview for one of those jobs and
Speaker 2: if you if you actually win that job, actually have
Speaker 2: a chance to be successful.
Speaker 1: Right because luck only lasts so long. Luck always sort
Speaker 1: of runs out, and what you have to you have
Speaker 1: to back it up with knowledge and talent and ability,
Speaker 1: which you obviously did because you've been doing it for
Speaker 1: a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's one of those. It's
Speaker 2: probably one. It's a very niche career to go into
Speaker 2: a lot of times, right, if you want to get
Speaker 2: in your business, you're going to start as a no. One.
Speaker 2: So there is a lot of wait a minute, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to go to law school and take that
Speaker 2: type of path, which it probably there's a little bit
Speaker 2: more structure to it. Right, You go to a law school,
Speaker 2: you come out, you go to a law firm. If
Speaker 2: you actually work hard and good at what you do.
Speaker 2: So now you're really like, wait a minute, I really
Speaker 2: for some reason love doing this version of art and
Speaker 2: you take a risk. There's not a lot of money
Speaker 2: early in it, because there are a lot of times
Speaker 2: in the football ecosystem instead of waiting tables and trying
Speaker 2: to memorize lines and win a job for a role
Speaker 2: on television or a play or a movie. There is
Speaker 2: a little more structure in football, but what they call
Speaker 2: there's there's kind of these entry level jobs which do
Speaker 2: not pay a lot, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: if you pay your dues, if you work hard, persevere
Speaker 2: and persevere to gain the experience, and at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, once you have this subset of experience, right,
Speaker 2: you grow up playing football, in my case, grew up
Speaker 2: playing football. At one time, I was thinking about med
Speaker 2: school and a lot of people will ask how do
Speaker 2: I get into football? How to become a writing And
Speaker 2: now I'm going, you know, I say, you got to
Speaker 2: get a PhD in football, But at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, I'm not sure I would recommend that because
Speaker 2: you can get a PhD in something, and usually there's
Speaker 2: there's kind of a structured job.
Speaker 1: There's a job.
Speaker 2: They may pay different levels, but the end of the day,
Speaker 2: if you go to med school and you probably become
Speaker 2: a doctor, you get a PhD in football, where does
Speaker 2: it lead.
Speaker 1: It's definitely it can be a crap shoot.
Speaker 2: Definitely a crap.
Speaker 1: Shoot, Yeah, you're gambling, but you're gambling on yourself, which
Speaker 1: to me, I think that there there are certain personalities.
Speaker 1: I always say to people that ten out of ten,
Speaker 1: I'm going to gamble on myself just because I know
Speaker 1: that my I know my ambition, I know my drive,
Speaker 1: I know my work ethic and I think the same
Speaker 1: review and we have a lot of we talked about this,
Speaker 1: We have a lot of similarities in our personalities. And
Speaker 1: I feel like you're the guy who who's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to gamble on myself.
Speaker 2: Definitely. Here here's what's really neat where it probably ties
Speaker 2: again early in your career in late you're betting on yourself. Young,
Speaker 2: neat thing. You're probably not mayrior, you probably don't have
Speaker 2: a family, there's not a lot of mouths to feed.
Speaker 2: You can live off not much, but you're betting on yourself.
Speaker 2: So fast forward that fifteen twenty years later and you
Speaker 2: to become a general manager. But now you have the
Speaker 2: responsibility of a team that's in Los Angeles. That was
Speaker 2: coming back to Los Angeles that while it was going
Speaker 2: to be really neat for the NFL for after so
Speaker 2: many years of not being in Los Angeles, coming back
Speaker 2: and succeeding here. Whether it's somewhere coded in your DNA
Speaker 2: probably is a little bit, Whether it's those experience of
Speaker 2: betting yourself, betting on yourself early when there was really
Speaker 2: you didn't really know if there was a pot of
Speaker 2: gold on the other end of the rainbow. You know,
Speaker 2: you're not really sure if you're going to be successful
Speaker 2: or not. But you're definitely responsible for the Los Angeles
Speaker 2: Rams being successful. So I think that really those early days,
Speaker 2: middle days that lead to here kind of make that pressure,
Speaker 2: that responsibility probably feel a less less heavier than some would.
Speaker 1: Think, right like you and Sean Theay, the coach of
Speaker 1: the Rams. You guys seemed very tight and very much
Speaker 1: a team. At what point did you two meet and
Speaker 1: form that bond.
Speaker 2: Well, it was really during the when we were interviewing
Speaker 2: him to become our head coach.
Speaker 1: So you were already general manager.
Speaker 2: I was already general manager, and we had been in St. Louis.
Speaker 2: We relocated to Los Angeles in twenty sixteen too, and
Speaker 2: we didn't succeed. Twenty sixteen was a bad year, and
Speaker 2: at that point in time, I was very fortunate their
Speaker 2: ownership allowed me to that they saw enough of me
Speaker 2: to go, we're going to give you a shot to
Speaker 2: be a part of continuing with the Rams and help
Speaker 2: hire the new head football coach that you were going
Speaker 2: to partner with. So that was really the first time
Speaker 2: we met. Shawn's really one of those wiz kids in
Speaker 2: terms of when we hired him to be our head
Speaker 2: football coach. He was thirty years all young, I mean
Speaker 2: that is young, and but he was really good at
Speaker 2: what he did in terms of calling offensive play. So
Speaker 2: he's the guy in charge of if you watch football right,
Speaker 2: the offense has the ball and they run a play,
Speaker 2: they go back to the huddle and someone calls a
Speaker 2: play into the QB and they go run another play.
Speaker 2: But it's all basically a chess match, some version of
Speaker 2: a poker match where there is a lot of strategy involved,
Speaker 2: and he's he was really really good at that, and
Speaker 2: that's normally how you get your shot to be a
Speaker 2: head coach. You're either going to be really good at
Speaker 2: being an offensive or defensive coordinator. He was one of those.
Speaker 2: But the new thing is, wow, at thirty years old,
Speaker 2: you could tell. I've often said we either I know,
Speaker 2: we changed your life for the better, but we might
Speaker 2: have ruined it because I you could probably have a
Speaker 2: different story. But a lot of us in our thirties
Speaker 2: didn't have that type of pressure and responsibility. I mean,
Speaker 2: you kind of got to live your thirties like to.
Speaker 1: I do nothing but pressure in my twenti and thirties.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you signed up for it. That's what I did.
Speaker 1: I signed up.
Speaker 2: So that's where you could probably relate to Sean for sure, right,
Speaker 2: being that young, but also caring, right, having the responsibility
Speaker 2: of helping a television show, being really, really, really successful.
Speaker 1: Like I never see him on the sidelines getting really
Speaker 1: worked up, and I watch a large majority of the games,
Speaker 1: and I've never really seen him like lose his shit.
Speaker 1: I do know some people are doing well. I mean
Speaker 1: it's probably it's probably you know, you're exactly.
Speaker 2: Right on the sideline in the heat of pressure. He
Speaker 2: is very, very skilled to be able to be that poise,
Speaker 2: be that calm, be able to assess what's going on
Speaker 2: in real time and right call the right plays.
Speaker 1: But you're the same way.
Speaker 2: I am the same way. But his job's going to entail.
Speaker 2: Let's call it. Let's call quicker decisions when there's a
Speaker 2: lot of chaos going on my job, and it's one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why, one of the reasons why we
Speaker 2: partner so well. My job it's more let's call it assessing, analyzing.
Speaker 2: There's probably more time to make decisions. So very very
Speaker 2: interesting how the two skill sets are similar but different.
Speaker 2: I guess you call it. We're both highly confident people,
Speaker 2: but we really don't allow our egos. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: we have them. I know we do, but we don't
Speaker 2: allow our egos to and that's what happens a lot
Speaker 2: of times in really good partnerships. Right, I'm sure you've
Speaker 2: seen it in your world. It was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: I want to be the star. I want to be
Speaker 2: the co star. Wait, and I want to be the star.
Speaker 2: So we work together. I don't want to do his job.
Speaker 2: He really doesn't want to do my job, but we
Speaker 2: both need each other. We both have to be on
Speaker 2: the same page to do each other's job. So it's
Speaker 2: a cool bond where I'm about twenty something years older
Speaker 2: than him. So we have a very big brother little
Speaker 2: brother relationship and that we're really close. You know, we
Speaker 2: can we can punch each other out, not literally, but
Speaker 2: you know, and come back five minutes later and it's
Speaker 2: really cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is for the listeners. You guys, I've
Speaker 1: now known last for a couple of years. I know
Speaker 1: his wife, and I personally have never met someone so
Speaker 1: incredibly level headed and humble and kind as you in
Speaker 1: your position. There's obviously a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: that are humble, kind and all of that stuff. But
Speaker 1: you're the GM and the Los Angeles Rams, you know,
Speaker 1: like that to me is a huge important job. And
Speaker 1: you don't have social media, but you must here to
Speaker 1: some extent. Some of the fans grumbling at times are
Speaker 1: angry or because they only see and I know this
Speaker 1: from my experience and also watching it happen to you
Speaker 1: and just the Rams in general. The fans don't know
Speaker 1: all the particulars. They don't know the inside of what's happening.
Speaker 1: They don't know that what's happening with this player at
Speaker 1: that moment, or why you made that decision. They just
Speaker 1: know that maybe that decision failed or maybe that play
Speaker 1: was the wrong play. Because they're passionate and they love
Speaker 1: the sport and they love the team, and because you're
Speaker 1: on social media, you must be somewhat insulated from all
Speaker 1: of the noise. But at the same time, I know
Speaker 1: you do hear some of the noise. What is that like?
Speaker 2: You know, it's a little bit older school, but very
Speaker 2: intentional with the social media not having it just because
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, it's not just to
Speaker 2: avoid the noise, but it's also probably to avoid the
Speaker 2: noise of the world. Right, And there's times I will
Speaker 2: obviously go and go, okay, this will you will intentionally
Speaker 2: spend time to okay, let me look at world news
Speaker 2: and see what's going on. But I think if you're
Speaker 2: in my position, if you're responsible for leading a sports franchise,
Speaker 2: it's awesome that the fans care. I've often wondered about
Speaker 2: us in football, would we do this if no one
Speaker 2: watched or care? Like to think so, But you often
Speaker 2: wonder would you? So that's interesting?
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't do it if I wasn't getting paid.
Speaker 2: No, that's interestingly right, because you because they help you
Speaker 2: get paid. So number that's the you have to approach
Speaker 2: it with the awareness with thirty thousand feet that Okay,
Speaker 2: they do care. Like you said, they don't necessarily know
Speaker 2: the nuance of their every decision. I'm sure our fans
Speaker 2: like some of the free agency signed, some we didn't
Speaker 2: wish we'd have gotten this player or not. Right, you
Speaker 2: can appreciate what they won't desire, but at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, I know this, they really desire a
Speaker 2: winning football team. So it kind of all comes together
Speaker 2: during the season. And if we're winning, you know what,
Speaker 2: we're all jacked and we're all doing it together. So
Speaker 2: you have That's how you got to approach the fans
Speaker 2: in terms of they're passionate and it's cool.
Speaker 1: To hear their voice, and you really get locked in,
Speaker 1: Like you get so locked in during this season you
Speaker 1: are an even preseason, like when is the draft house
Speaker 1: coming up?
Speaker 2: The draft houses in of April. We were about to
Speaker 2: really hit full throttle draft preparation. Where As my wife says,
Speaker 2: I have no life skills at all during that time,
Speaker 2: probably a lot of the year in football.
Speaker 1: Then your wife let us know, like was she let
Speaker 1: me know that you canceled Christmas at some point?
Speaker 2: That's a good one. Listeners can appreciate this, and I
Speaker 2: go through this still today. So I cancel Christmas on
Speaker 2: I think it was it was a Christmas Eve game.
Speaker 2: I was with the Falcons then, and at the end
Speaker 2: of the day it was Christmas Eve, and the winner
Speaker 2: of that game is going to go to the playoffs,
Speaker 2: and the losers and not so probably a four o'clock
Speaker 2: Eastern kickoff Christmas Eve game goes in overtime. I think
Speaker 2: we're down. We score late in the game to put
Speaker 2: the game over time. We kick off to Tampa Bay
Speaker 2: and they fumbled the kickoff. So at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, they fumbled the kickoff, probably inside their ten
Speaker 2: yard line, so they pretty much gift us. In those days,
Speaker 2: overtime rules are different. But we kick a field goal,
Speaker 2: we win the game, we go to the playoffs, we
Speaker 2: get on the plane and go home, we celebrate Christmas.
Speaker 2: So we set up for basically a field goal what
Speaker 2: would be an extra point. It's the thing that happens
Speaker 2: after a touchdown where everyone goes and goes they have
Speaker 2: six points and when I come back, they'll have seven. Right,
Speaker 2: It's basically a gimmy field goal. Tampa Bay ends up
Speaker 2: blocking our field goal and walks it off for a touchdown,
Speaker 2: game winning touchdown, or I can't remember, or they ran
Speaker 2: it all the way back. We stop them, but they
Speaker 2: kicked the field goal to win it. They go to the playoffs.
Speaker 2: We don't. Our season is now over losing. I feel
Speaker 2: like it's the most excruciating pain you can go through,
Speaker 2: right without it being some real life tragedy. Right, You're
Speaker 2: basically devastated and get back on a plane, fly back
Speaker 2: to Atlanta. At that point in time, have two little ones,
Speaker 2: and the next morning's Christmas. But not in the headspace,
Speaker 2: not emotionally. We're canceling this now. How can you do
Speaker 2: that to your two kids? So there's they got to
Speaker 2: open presents and things like that. Yeah, I was definitely
Speaker 2: not present. I was not having any of this. You know,
Speaker 2: Santa Claus is not real? Why are we? This is
Speaker 2: losing that game yesterday is real? Santa Claus? Who cares?
Speaker 2: There's no Santa Claus kids. I know you're only three
Speaker 2: and one, but you need to learn that now. I
Speaker 2: can what age fifty three? Now? I think we can
Speaker 2: still be going through. Let's just say we had a
Speaker 2: tough two or three games, and it's pretty cool when
Speaker 2: you find a local coffee shop and eventually whenever you
Speaker 2: go normally get coffee or whatever, you're going to end
Speaker 2: up meeting people and the kind of the regulars there.
Speaker 2: But right here in Malibu, there are definitely times when
Speaker 2: I go, you know what, I can't go face them.
Speaker 2: We lost. We have two game losing streak. I'm miserable.
Speaker 2: I got to go to another coffee shop where no
Speaker 2: one knows me, and right I can go in and
Speaker 2: just get coffee and get out of there.
Speaker 1: Or you have people like myself and Christy to take
Speaker 1: you for hikes. Yes, instead day the super Bowl is here,
Speaker 1: get your head away from it.
Speaker 2: It's interesting most people watch the super Bowl right most
Speaker 2: watched entertainment event of the year usually, and I rarely
Speaker 2: watch any of them because I've been a part of
Speaker 2: being in three of them, so wasn't born for all
Speaker 2: of them. So I've basically, you know, seen about three
Speaker 2: super Bowls. Now I can say this. There's times I've
Speaker 2: kind of watched a half here there, but usually I
Speaker 2: try to avoid it, like this past super Bowl where
Speaker 2: we went hiking and there's a lot of PTSD either.
Speaker 1: I understand that there's a few jobs in my life
Speaker 1: that I've lost to another actress and I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to watch the movie.
Speaker 2: Like that's cool.
Speaker 1: I can really, Yeah, I mean i'll give you like heat.
Speaker 1: For example, the Michael Man. I really wanted that movie. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Robert s Niro al Pacino, like, you know, Michael Mann
Speaker 1: and Ashley Judd got the part instead of me, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't bear to watch the film. I eventually watched it, like,
Speaker 1: but I had to give myself a couple of years
Speaker 1: before I could watch it, because I just there are
Speaker 1: certain jobs that you audition for that you care so
Speaker 1: much about, like everything is perfect about it, yes, everything,
Speaker 1: and and you walk away from your audition and you're like,
Speaker 1: I nailed at this job as mine, and you're so
Speaker 1: confident that you're going to be in that movie, and
Speaker 1: when you're told that they picked somebody else, it's devastating.
Speaker 1: It's really really really hard. So then to all of
Speaker 1: a sudden walk from the movie theater and see somebody
Speaker 1: else doing the job that you know you were like
Speaker 1: born for is incredibly hard. Now that you know the
Speaker 1: other side of that is that she was born for
Speaker 1: it too, right, she did like a phenomenal job, And
Speaker 1: we're totally different actresses and we come with, you know,
Speaker 1: a different set of skills and everything else. So what
Speaker 1: she did was different than what I did, and obviously
Speaker 1: they liked what she did better. That's why they picked her.
Speaker 1: And years later when I sat down to watch the movie,
Speaker 1: I was like, damn it, she's really good in it.
Speaker 1: It was like having to admit that they made the
Speaker 1: right decision essentially, But yeah, it took.
Speaker 2: Time, right, Yeah, years and maybe a little more maturity,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure the years experienced. Whatever. Football is like anything,
Speaker 2: there's there's times right you're it's interesting the emotional dynamics
Speaker 2: you go through of only two teams are going to
Speaker 2: be in the super only ones going to win. But
Speaker 2: it's like if it's a really a rival, if it's
Speaker 2: if it's a competitor that you really really are let's
Speaker 2: call it good friends with and you go, man, I'm
Speaker 2: pulling for that person. But then there's that element of
Speaker 2: like I'm still jealous. And then there's there's times where
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, I'm a bad human being. I'm really
Speaker 2: pulling for this right this movie to just bomb, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. But that's you go through that.
Speaker 2: We laugh, but you make a good point. Now being
Speaker 2: in my role, Sean's role, and we're going through it
Speaker 2: now where a lot of our players contracts expired. So
Speaker 2: if you're drafted, you got four years basically, and then
Speaker 2: after four years of contract inspires we either signed you
Speaker 2: back to a second contract, another team could come in
Speaker 2: and sign you, or we actually say to you we
Speaker 2: would rather have someone else we're gonna sign. So it may.
Speaker 2: It just made me think that Sean and I talked
Speaker 2: about it's such a hard call to call out of respect,
Speaker 2: go like, Okay, can we at least explain to someone
Speaker 2: who we've worked with for four years and go, this
Speaker 2: is why, this is the reason you deserve to hear
Speaker 2: that probably not getting a Christmas card that year, but
Speaker 2: at the end of the day too, people like yourself
Speaker 2: who didn't get that job that are talented. The reality
Speaker 2: is you're probably going to get another one, but just
Speaker 2: not that one.
Speaker 1: Are you the one who calls the players and lets them.
Speaker 2: Go Yes, And a lot of times Sean and I
Speaker 2: do it together. We like to do it, going back
Speaker 2: to our relationship where partners in this. He's a very
Speaker 2: relational person. It's probably one of his superpowers, but it's
Speaker 2: also something that's very exhausting for him and that he
Speaker 2: really gets to know as players. He really cares about them.
Speaker 2: He has high demands, high standards. He wants them to
Speaker 2: be the best football that player, the thing being, he
Speaker 2: wants him to play quality football and he's going to
Speaker 2: the most to get push him to get there, along
Speaker 2: with the staff. But in those moments it's so exhausting
Speaker 2: for him. But because he truly cares, he wants to
Speaker 2: be a part of the hard conversations. But we do
Speaker 2: like to, you know, make those cuts together.
Speaker 1: And is that draining on you? Because I would imagine
Speaker 1: you now know these players, Sean you know definitely knows them.
Speaker 1: You know that they have families, you know that they
Speaker 1: have mortgages. But your job is to do what's best
Speaker 1: for the team. Overall. Your job is to win and succeed.
Speaker 1: And if a player isn't playing their best or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe things have just the dynamic on the team has
Speaker 1: shifted with some of the rookies or whatever, and you
Speaker 1: know that this player is no longer gelling. And I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about personalities like play style, it's just not gelling.
Speaker 1: So you know that you have to get rid of them.
Speaker 1: But in the back of your head, I would imagine
Speaker 1: that it would be incredibly hard to let someone go
Speaker 1: because you do know everything about them.
Speaker 2: It's very it's very hard. It weighs on you. But
Speaker 2: we are a team. Where are the Los Angeles Rams.
Speaker 2: We're collective. It's our responsibility to, as we say a
Speaker 2: lot of times, just have the most competent collective as possible.
Speaker 2: And that does sometimes mean you got to look someone
Speaker 2: in the eye and say, I think we would be
Speaker 2: more competent basically without you. So that is so you
Speaker 2: make a good point, though sometimes I have found it
Speaker 2: when you're doing that with leta's say, a player has
Speaker 2: been with you maybe eight years, that player's successful, good family,
Speaker 2: will probably get a chance to play again. Right, You've
Speaker 2: probably been a part of a lot of good times
Speaker 2: with that player, even even from a financial standpoint. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you find that a little bit. They're tough because those
Speaker 2: are the relationship. But those relationships you're usually going to
Speaker 2: be in a year or two, you're still going to
Speaker 2: be close with that person. I found it so hard
Speaker 2: when you, let's call it, have a young rookie who,
Speaker 2: right is just out of college, and all that person's
Speaker 2: been doing is playing football, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it's like you cut him and drop him off a cliff,
Speaker 2: their life just got shattered. Where this veteran there's an
Speaker 2: element of stability already if.
Speaker 1: I've seen it, probably throughout their career.
Speaker 2: So but there are time and that you just don't
Speaker 2: because obviously the question may come with do you think
Speaker 2: I have a chance to play? But you really don't
Speaker 2: know because a lot of times, right their skill level
Speaker 2: is let's call it the left side of the bell curve.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of people on the planet like them.
Speaker 2: So mom and dad, God didn't give them some genetic
Speaker 2: traits that Okay, yeah, you're always going to be in
Speaker 2: the NFL, right, you're you're right on the line. So
Speaker 2: it's those players sometimes where you go, wow, that was
Speaker 2: that was hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, because they're young, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you've given them the chance of a lifetime and they
Speaker 1: think my life has completely changed and this is amazing,
Speaker 1: and then it changes yet again.
Speaker 2: And they've usually been the best player in high school,
Speaker 2: college or one of the best, and now all of
Speaker 2: a sudden you're cutting them. Often, these the guys were
Speaker 2: usually weren't cut, you know, they didn't they didn't go
Speaker 2: through the trauma of the Michael Jordan's story where I
Speaker 2: got cut by my eighth grade basketball. Not many of them,
Speaker 2: you know, most of it am Yeah.
Speaker 1: But they're also now playing in a much larger arena
Speaker 1: with you know, hundreds of guys who are also the best.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's the weeding out process that has
Speaker 1: to happen at some point. Let's talk about the board.
Speaker 2: The board.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the board.
Speaker 2: That was early tease.
Speaker 1: It was a really early tease and women, some of
Speaker 1: the women listening are like, Okay, what's the tian? They're wondering. First,
Speaker 1: the tian is that I've always been a football fan.
Speaker 1: My father was a big USC fan, as you know,
Speaker 1: we've had this discussion, and I grew up going to
Speaker 1: a sea game games, so I've always been in a
Speaker 1: football and going to the draft house was the most
Speaker 1: exciting thing ever for me. And if my dad were alive,
Speaker 1: you know, he would have been over the moon seeing
Speaker 1: this board. And somebody had talked to me. I think
Speaker 1: it was Christie or maybe it was your wife who
Speaker 1: had talked to me about sort of what your process was,
Speaker 1: and I kind of equated it to the only thing
Speaker 1: I could think before I saw it for myself was
Speaker 1: you know, the movie Moneyball. I was like, Okay, is
Speaker 1: he doing something like they did in Moneyball?
Speaker 2: And in a way, in a way, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of Moneyball in Yeah, not as much in football in baseball,
Speaker 2: but we do. I mean you saw all the computer screens.
Speaker 1: I think that analyzing is what's similar obviously, not the
Speaker 1: not the financial of it, but the how much analyzing
Speaker 1: goes into it. So, as somebody recently said on my podcast,
Speaker 1: they said, you know, Shannon, your your picker is broken,
Speaker 1: and it really hit home because I've known it for
Speaker 1: a long time. I got a few boyfriends here and
Speaker 1: there that I was very lucky with. It had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with my picker. It's just they ended up
Speaker 1: being amazing guys. I pick the wrong men for me.
Speaker 1: I pick men with red flags, Like all over the place,
Speaker 1: I see a red flag and I charge towards it.
Speaker 1: I don't run away from it when I should be
Speaker 1: running away. So when I saw the buyer beware category
Speaker 1: on your thing, I was like, oh, that's all the
Speaker 1: men in my life came from that category buyer beware.
Speaker 1: And I dove right into that category.
Speaker 2: These four categories we'll talk about right now, and that's
Speaker 2: what you notice are it's four categories, and they're probably
Speaker 2: going to be where you draft your first round pick,
Speaker 2: your second round pick. So a first round pick in
Speaker 2: the dating world wouldn't be you know what, it's a
Speaker 2: random Saturday at a club and you're just gonna you know,
Speaker 2: that's not first round worthy, right, that's just that maybe
Speaker 2: later in the draft, like you know what, Saturday night,
Speaker 2: I say that I meet this guy, we go hang out.
Speaker 2: So there you go. So these are important. These are important. Uh,
Speaker 2: let's call it decisions to make. So what you saw
Speaker 2: is we have math changer. So a math changer, let's
Speaker 2: say we if you're a Laker fan, think Lebron James math.
Speaker 2: It probably takes two people to guard him and not one, right,
Speaker 2: so he changes the math on the court. Uh, there's
Speaker 2: not many of those, especially in the draft. And then
Speaker 2: then there's this I call it reliable starter. And what's
Speaker 2: interesting about the reliable starter, probably in the dating world,
Speaker 2: would be, oh, man, is that a little bit boring?
Speaker 2: But stable? Right? Maybe like he's a you know what,
Speaker 2: he's a lawyer, but you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 2: kind of a little boring, stable, not a math changer.
Speaker 2: I don't know. What a math changer. Math changer probably
Speaker 2: changes in you're in the dating world, right, depending on
Speaker 2: where you're at and where you're at in your life. Right.
Speaker 2: But and then there's the oh, this guy has probably
Speaker 2: some math changing capabilities, reliable startup capabilities, but not as consistent.
Speaker 2: There's a buyer beware element based on something and it
Speaker 2: could be intangibly. It could be a physical trait to
Speaker 2: like maybe in football we like tough players, so maybe
Speaker 2: more finesse than tough. There's something there that you go,
Speaker 2: you know what, if we're going to pick someone the
Speaker 2: date long term, it's like, it's like the person your
Speaker 2: dad warned you about, but you know, if your dad
Speaker 2: it's like, but there, maybe I don't want to give
Speaker 2: them the dad. But maybe this guy has a man
Speaker 2: it's got really really good abs, but he's got some
Speaker 2: red flags, as you said, so he's like, do you really?
Speaker 2: So that's that's that's probably your three categories. So what's
Speaker 2: very interesting as we draft, because we are betting on
Speaker 2: this player for four years, that's at least dating him
Speaker 2: or living with him or marrying him for four years.
Speaker 2: Is it better to go with that reliable start a
Speaker 2: math changer if he's there and it's got a clean profile,
Speaker 2: that's easy. Not many of those, so usually you're having
Speaker 2: to pick between kind of the little the more boring
Speaker 2: but stable, or a little more exciting but less predictable
Speaker 2: red flax. So that puts it in context. We can
Speaker 2: get into the other categories, but I think, I think
Speaker 2: that that's where we're at. So I understand. I have
Speaker 2: a eighteen going on nineteen year old daughter, so I
Speaker 2: understand the buyer beware category. And I've been young before.
Speaker 1: So ad for her.
Speaker 2: You know what, Here's what I always do is I'm
Speaker 2: well aware who she's dating, what what bucket I have
Speaker 2: them in again at eighteen or nineteen, Maybe maybe they
Speaker 2: don't even I don't even know if you can be
Speaker 2: a math changer as a nineteen year old. I mean yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean if it is, I don't want to know
Speaker 2: why they're the math changer, especially if you have an
Speaker 2: eighteen or nineteen year old daughter. But you see it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you kind of can visualize, Okay, that that's a buyer beware.
Speaker 1: Okay, So for me, my picker's program tempting. So you're
Speaker 1: going to do the board for me, And that's how
Speaker 1: we're going to pack